


I’ll Be Home for Christmas (You Can Count on Me)

by MrSandman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Crackers, Christmas Dinner, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Post-Episode: 2011 Xmas The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28846413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrSandman/pseuds/MrSandman
Summary: “No one should be alone at Christmas,” Madge Arwell had said, and no, the Doctor isn’t alone at Christmas after all, because he has hisfriends,and try as he might to push them away for their own safety, they’llalwaysbe there for him. They’llalwaysset a place at the table for him.
Relationships: Amy Pond/Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor/River Song, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	I’ll Be Home for Christmas (You Can Count on Me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teddybearmiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teddybearmiles/gifts).



> So, I thought it would be fun to write my version of the Christmas that Eleven spends with the Ponds after his adventures with the Arwells, and thus this fic was born! This is a very belated Christmas gift for Miles - I really hope you like it :D. 
> 
> Is the layout of some of the rooms in this fic based on my grandparents’ house? Yes. Is that because under normal circumstances I spend Christmas there? Also yes. Does that mean that the inside of the Ponds’ house has a coherent layout and definite geography? Absolutely not. 
> 
> Edited by the wonderful Nik - thank you for freeing me of my errant commas, my friend! <3 
> 
> Title from I'll Be Home for Christmas by The Beach Boys!

“Woooah! You’re not dead then.”

“We’ve done that,” Amy remarks matter-of-factly, before turning back to the Doctor. “We’re about to have Christmas dinner. Joining us?” 

The Doctor watches Amy’s awkward little dance, thinking about how long it’s been since he saw the Ponds - _his_ Ponds - and adopts a similarly joking, yet hopeful tone. 

“If it’s no trouble,” he says, raising his eyebrows, and Rory looks taken aback. 

“There’s a place set for you,” he says, and the Doctor frowns in confusion. 

“But you didn't know I was coming. Why would you set me a place?” He may be a time-sensitive being with multiple brain stems and centuries of experiences on which to call, but even the Doctor can’t find the logic in that one. The thought of this is almost enough to make him downcast, an emotion which he has been told makes him look like a puppy in a downpour, but luckily Amy interrupts his unexpectedly mercurial mood. 

“Ohhh, because we always do,” Amy says fondly, and a touch irritably. _How very Scottish of her,_ the Doctor thinks to himself. “It’s Christmas, you moron!” 

Amy gives the Doctor one last cursory spritz with the water pistol before squeezing past Rory, where he stands in the hallway and gives the Doctor a look that can only be described as _tender._ The Doctor takes in this picture, of Rory in the hallway of their house and Amy’s rapidly retreating back, and feels soft tendrils of warmth spread out through his chest. 

Rory’s voice startles the Doctor out of his reverie. “Come on,” he says, turning to follow Amy out to the back of the house. 

The Doctor hesitates on the doorstep, puzzling this out for a few moments. _Because we always do_ plays on loop in his head, his thoughts moving far faster than any human’s ever could, and suddenly, he understands. 

“No one should be alone at Christmas,” Madge Arwell had said, and no, the Doctor isn’t alone at Christmas after all, because he has his _friends_ , and try as he might to push them away for their own safety, they’ll _always_ be there for him. They’ll _always_ set a place at the table for him. 

Oh, and now his cheeks are wet. _Happy crying,_ he thinks, laughing quietly to himself as he shuts the front door. His humans have clearly been rubbing off on him.

***

Once he’s toed off his boots and draped his blazer over the banister, the Doctor follows his nose. He considers his nose to be a fairly good guide, actually, after all his years of honing its skills. It certainly came in handy when he found himself stuck in an endless forest, and managed to navigate back to the TARDIS by following a trail of Jammy Dodger crumbs that had escaped confinement via a hole in his pocket. 

However, on this particular occasion the Doctor will not be required to carefully sniff out the delicate aroma of buttery shortcake biscuits and sweet-yet-tart raspberry jam. Oh no, this time the Doctor has no trouble at all locating the source of the strong scent of burning wafting through the house like a particularly foul-smelling cloud. 

As he steps into the kitchen, the Doctor takes in the scene before him: Amy shouting and wafting a tea towel in front of the fire alarm in the hopes of preventing it from sounding; Rory dithering in the middle of the kitchen, oven gloves firmly wrapped around an oven tray with what looks to be a really rather burnt turkey sat in the middle; and an older gentleman sat in the corner, placidly reading a newspaper as the chaos unfolds around him. 

“Right! Well! Christmas at the Ponds’ is certainly eventful,” the Doctor remarks delightedly, weaving around Rory to grab another tea towel and join Amy in her bizarre smoke alarm dance.

“It’s not like this _every_ year. It’s _not_ ,” Amy insists, relenting when Rory gives her a meaningful look. “Okay, _fine,_ maybe it is! Rory, could you _please_ just put the turkey down and go and sit with your father? That’s enough flapping, Doctor, thank you.”

Amy swipes the tea towel from the Doctor’s grasp, a move which greatly disappoints him. He was rather enjoying all the waving and shouting! It reminds him of an elaborate jig he saw being performed many, many regenerations ago, on Zagara IX…

The Doctor shakes himself out of this particular trip down memory lane just as Rory is ushering him over to meet his dad, Brian.

“Ah, Brian Pond!” the Doctor replies in greeting. “Lovely to meet you!” 

“No, Doctor, it doesn’t work like that,” Amy tries to explain, but the Doctor is already chattering away to Brian and takes absolutely no notice. 

“And _that’s_ when _I_ said, hang on, Rory, you’re a Roman!” the Doctor is saying to Brian when Amy and Rory manage to tear themselves away from their attempts to salvage the turkey. 

“Er, Doctor? I think you’ve told Dad enough stories now,” Rory says, gently steering the Doctor in his wife’s direction. “Why don’t you help Amy with the turkey, and then we can all go and sit down at the dining table?”

“Your friend is very eccentric,” Brian comments as the Doctor enthusiastically hacks away at the turkey. 

“Tell me about it,” Rory replies, scooping up a dish of Brussels sprouts and a serving spoon. “Help me with the veg?”

***

Predictably, the Doctor is absolutely thrilled when they finally sit down to eat, and he notices that Amy and Rory have bought crackers. _Crackers!_ With jokes! _And_ hats! _And_ a toy or gadget that no one but the Doctor ever seems to want! 

Amy, Rory and Brian exchange long looks, before pushing their respective plastic frog, faux moustache and miniature screwdriver set towards the Doctor. 

Red paper crown perched jauntily on his head and bow tie askew after too much overexcited fidgeting, the Doctor reads out joke after joke and laughs merrily at each and every one. He catches sight of Amy and Rory grinning at him before exchanging a gentle kiss, and smiles softly to himself. They look happier than they have in a long time, and that thought almost makes the Doctor sad, because he knows that in a way, he was right - those smiles were made by taking a break from the running, and the danger, and the _adventures_. 

But maybe, just maybe, he can still steal them away sometimes. Every now and then. After all, he still hasn’t taken them to Barcelona, where the dogs have no noses! Or its neighbouring planet, where they have an infinite number of flavours of ice cream! Or-

“The food’s not getting any warmer, you know,” Brian says, already tucking into the turkey. Luckily the damage was largely superficial, and the inside looks to be cooked to perfection. Rory has never looked more relieved than he did when the outer layer of charring came off like a rather flaky glove, the Doctor notes. 

“Well then?” The Doctor claps his hands, straightens his hat and picks up his cutlery. “Shall we dig in?”

***

“I’m telling you, this time last year River was already drunk-dancing on the table,” Amy maintains, as Rory vehemently disagrees with her. “I remember, because you told her to get down, because she was blocking your view of the telly, and the Strictly special was on!”

“Yes, well, _some_ of us are impressed by such technical feats,” Rory replies petulantly, “and some of us are _clearly_ lacking in taste!”

“Are not!” Amy exclaims, and the Doctor watches them bicker back and forth happily from the floor, where he’s sat cross-legged in front of the coffee table, attempting to make his plastic frog jump the length of its polished surface. 

A loud snore from the sofa distracts Amy and Rory from their argument and the Doctor from his amphibian long jump, and the trio look over at Brian. He’s dozed off after one too many glasses of brandy with his Christmas pudding, his reading glasses sliding down his nose and the newspaper rapidly disintegrating in his lap. Amy and Rory smile fondly at him, and the Doctor smiles fondly at them. 

“I wish River had been able to make it this year,” Amy says wistfully, and Rory nods in agreement. 

“Your wife was otherwise engaged in what sounded like a high-speed transporter chase, when she called to cancel this morning,” Rory adds by way of explanation, and the Doctor nods knowingly. River is elusive at the best of times, and he would have been hoping for too much, had he expected all three of them to be in the same place at the same time. He does miss her, though, and makes a mental note to call her before the evening draws to a close. 

The three sit in silence for a moment, listening to Brian snooze peacefully, until Amy breaks the silence. 

“Anyway, enough moping about. It’s Christmas, for goodness’ sake! Which reminds me…”

Amy crouches down in front of the Christmas tree and rummages about beneath the branches for a moment, cheering triumphantly when she pulls out an irregularly shaped Christmas present wrapped in Snowman wrapping paper, a large blue bow adorning the front. 

“Oh! _The Snowman!_ Lovely film, that,” the Doctor starts, “and so is the soundtrack! D’you know, I was once on a planet where I literally was _walking in the air,_ because the gravity was so weak that…” 

The Doctor trails off as he realises that Amy is holding the parcel out to him, the expression on her face a mixture of shyness and defiance. 

”It’s… for me?” The Doctor looks between Amy and Rory, his eyes as big as saucers, and Rory laughs. 

“Of course, silly! I just…” Amy waves the parcel about vaguely. “I just had a feeling you might show up this year, okay?”

“Don’t believe a word she says,” Rory whispers conspiratorially. “She’s had it wrapped since last year.”

“ _Oi!”_ Amy nudges Rory with her hip, then wiggles the parcel in the Doctor’s face again, where he’s crept ever closer to them. “Go on then, open it!”

The Doctor gently takes the parcel from Amy with a wide-eyed gaze of confusion and excitement, immediately untying the bow and watching the ribbon fall to the ground in elegant coils. Tearing into the wrapping paper like a giddy little child, the Doctor gasps as his fingers sink into something soft and springy, and he pulls a jumper out of the paper. It’s _so_ fleecy and plush, and patterned with stripes of deep maroon, mustard yellow and TARDIS blue. 

“We just thought you’d like the design,” Amy interjects hastily, “and you’re always running about in cold places with that paper-thin shirt on!”

“Assuming that Time Lords are also warm-blooded,” Rory comments, receiving another nudge from Amy. “What? That’s a perfectly valid line of questioning!”

“ _Anyway,”_ Amy says, noticing that the Doctor has suddenly gone very quiet. “Do… you like it?”

“Like it…” the Doctor echoes, hands still firmly buried in the fabric of the jumper. “Amy, I _love_ it,” he says sincerely, smiling softly. 

Amy sighs in relief, and Rory rubs her shoulder companionably. 

“I haven’t been able to get you any Christmas presents,” the Doctor says, suddenly worried. “What with the caretaker job, and the whole ‘massive living forest inside one woman’s head’ business, I didn’t quite get the chance, really. But-”

“Oh, Doctor,” Amy interrupts, grinning at him, “we don’t care that you haven’t brought us presents. We’re just so happy to see you!”

Rory nods in approval, and the Doctor finds himself speechless, a rare occurrence indeed. In the thousand-plus years that he’s been alive, he’s never felt more welcome than he does right here with the Ponds. More _at home._

Because what he told Madge earlier was wrong, he realises with a start, his eyelashes damp anew with tears of joy. He _does_ have a family, in the shape of one time-travelling wife, a girl who waited and grew into an amazing woman in the process, and a centurion who walked the Earth for the one he loves. 

  
“A family,” he says to himself, looking between Amy and Rory in overjoyed amazement. “How very… _humany-wumany._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Strictly = Strictly Come Dancing, a dance competition show in the UK that generally has a Christmas special. (Many people only watch Strictly at Christmas, myself included, haha!) Hopefully all other references are clear or easily googled (other search engines are available).
> 
> Thank you for reading! Feel free to drop by and say hi on twitter (@hetheyharkness) or tumblr (kingisdead), should you so desire it. Comments, kudos etc. are very much appreciated! Have a great day :D


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